Various mining vehicles, such as rock drilling equipment, loading equipment and transport equipment, may be manned or unmanned. Unmanned mining vehicles may be remote-controlled by an operator from a control station, for instance, and they may be equipped with measuring instruments suitable for location determination. Unmanned mining vehicles may be operated automatically, e.g. driven along a desired route in the mine, as long as the location of the device can be determined. The automated operation may be carried out in a surface or underground operating area.
Loading equipment may be used to load and transport excavated material from one place to another, for example from a mine to out of the mine or to a loading pallet of a transport equipment. Loading of a bucket of the loading equipment may be performed e.g. so that the loading equipment is driven near a stack of excavated material such as ore, rocks or sand. The bucket may then be lowered down and also a boom to which the bucket is coupled may be lowered down, wherein the bucket is on the surface of the ground or near it. The loading equipment may now be driven forward so that the bucket contacts the stack. Driving the loading equipment may be continued with as large force as possible. If the loading equipment stops due to too high resistance of the stack of material, the bucket may be lifted upwards, which may enable driving the loading equipment a bit further. The material loaded to the bucket can then be moved to another place, for example to a spot reserved for unloading the material or in a loading pallet of transport equipment.